There are some outside the Republican camp who want to believe that Rand Paul may be a little bit of fresh air from a party that is considered to be either stodgy or extreme. With his father, Ron, being the best known Libertarian in the United States, Rand is seen by some as a respecter and protector of individual liberties. But do not be confused: The rights that he wants to protect are those of the gun owner who wants to carry weapons most anywhere. He also favors the rights of the business owner who wants to withhold his goods and services from people he doesn’t like, such as LGBTs. He certainly is nowhere close to championing the rights of women to control their reproductive decisions, or helping the poor with programs to redistribute income.

Rand Paul did something that no other Republican did; he came to Ferguson, Missouri, scene of the August 9, 2014 shooting of unarmed Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson and the subsequent protests and riots. Paul did more than gawk; he met with protestors and actually tried to listen to their grievances.

But we all know that money talks, and that is where Paul’s ideas are a non-starter. As the Washington Post reported on April 10 following Paul’s presidential announcement:

The first policy proposal Rand Paul announced in his big speech declaring his presidential campaign this week was an old-fashioned plan for the federal budget. The Republican senator from Kentucky wants to amend the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget every year.

It’s an old saw. For decades, Congressional Republicans have been carping for a balance budget. They were obviously absent the day that the British economist John Maynard Keynes explained to Franklin Roosevelt and all Americans that a balanced budget can often stifle the growth needed to jump-start a lagging economy. Keynes’ contention was rather straightforward: The federal government has the power to borrow money when necessary, and it should use that power to fund programs to help the unemployed and the poor. As these people get back to work, they will pay taxes that can re-balance the budget.

Some eighty years later, we have learned that even if we are not able to rebalance the budget in the short-run, we are none the worse for wear.

What Franklin Roosevelt and a Democratic Congress did during the New Deal was to borrow to create a variety of agencies that provided job opportunities as well as an economic safety net, namely Social Security. Granted, the big spike in employment did not occur until the U.S. entered World War II, but the mechanism was in place to have government take action that gave a higher priority to helping people, rather than balancing a budget.

When Rand Paul says that he supports a balanced budget, he is really saying the following: “Because we can’t raise taxes on the wealthy, because they are the job-creators of our economy, our only choice is to cut spending if we are to balance the budget.” So let us count the ways in which he would cut the money:

1. Maybe some military spending, because he had previously hinted that he thought this was a good idea, but after he had a big rally in the shadow of a huge aircraft carrier, it seems that military cuts are off the table.
2. Cutting Social Security
3. Cutting Medicare
4. Cutting infrastructure spending
5. Cutting spending on consumer safety.
6. Cutting spending on the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control
7. Cutting spending for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
8. Cutting spending for air traffic controllers
9. Cutting spending for the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program
10. Cutting spending for school lunches

Just this one position by Rand Paul, his support for a balanced budget amendment, show us that he has the mean streak of so many other Republicans and has a callous disregard for people with real needs, particularly economic needs.

Don’t let that edgy part of Rand Paul fool you. Yes, he’s a little bit “anti-establishment,” as most free-thinking people would be. Yes, he has expressed greater reservations about going to war than most other politicians. But when you get down to the particulars of his ideas, he is just another Republican tightwad who holds hostage the needs of the hundreds of millions of Americans who are either poor or in the stagnant middle class. If you want “change you can believe in,” cross him off your list.

The post Rand Paul: Just another Republican tightwad appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The Humor Games are almost always won by the left-wing comics. Whether it’s Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Larry Wilmore, or whoever, the last laugh seems to always be on Republicans. Why is that so?

Mainly because the right is so self-righteous and absolute in their beliefs. They make it so difficult for themselves to wiggle (this may also be true of their dancing). I remember being in high school and reading about the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. One of the tag lines that we were told to attach to his works was “moral relativism.” In contemporary popular culture, that great fictional cop, Bobby Simone on NYPD Blue, said it all in three words, “Everything’s a situation.”

Once you’re liberated from the absolutist constraints of a political party, a religion, a cult, or any other strict organization, you become freer to think for yourself. Republicans lock themselves into the dogma of Grover Norquist or Ted Cruz and if they deviate from it, they think that they have sinned (a term that is much more relative and less scary to the rest of the world).

But like every organization, the Republican Party has numerous constituents who look to it for leadership. At times the values of these various groups are at odds with those of other groups. This became exceptionally clear in recent weeks. We have New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul to thank for this. They both got bent out of shape about whether the common good, also known as “the state,” has a legitimate stake in guidelines for measles vaccines.

Both Christie and Paul rallied to the defense of parental rights. They asserted that if parents have convictions based on the belief that measles vaccines are harmful to their children, these rights must be protected against the iron hand of the state. Perhaps this is so; like so many issues, the wisdom of compulsory measles vaccines is complicated. So in this case, Christie and Paul said, “Sometimes it should be the state’s decision; sometimes it should be the parents’ decision.”

The problem is that in this case, Christie and Paul let the exigencies of life influence their thinking on vaccines. The irony is that neither they nor any other prominent Republicans allow the complications of day-to-day life to influence their decisions on other parent–state conflicts, such as reproductive rights. It’s an absolute to Republicans and many of their constituents that abortion is morally wrong, that the state should enforce this mandate, and that parents have no rights when “the voice of God” is heard.

Well, where is the “voice of God” when it comes to vaccinations? Perhaps it’s too minor an issue, only two hundred million people have died from it since its inception. If you believe that there is a “voice of God” that is intricately involved in our social, economic, moral and political issues, then you have some explaining to do as to why parents have the right to say no to vaccines but don’t have the right to say yes to abortion.

This so-called moral relativism is much easier if you are a person who believes in a Supreme Being who has historically given us a path by which to live, but who is not our everyday cop on the path as we journey through life. It is also easier if you do not accept a Supreme Being, or if you are agnostic on the issue. But perhaps it’s the Republicans who get the last laugh, because while we parse issues and try to apply reason, they have the comfort of knowing that many Americans prefer to make political decisions as the GOP does, with a heavy dose of hypocritical absolutism.

The post Why Republicans have it tougher than the rest of us appeared first on Occasional Planet.

To quote Rand Paul [see how easy it is to include attribution in your writings?], ” It’s a little hard to footnote things accurately.” Actually, it’s not, as I have just demonstrated. By the time the 2016 presidential election campaign rolls around, we’ll probably have forgotten all about Rand Paul’s proclivity for borrowing other peoples’ words and pretending they’re his own–unless, of course, he continues to forget that the plagiarism police inevitably get their man and that people really don’t like it when you steal stuff. It’s sort of a moral issue, y’know?

Here’s how Mad Magazine responded to Rand Paul’s response to accusations of plagiarism:

After  Paul’s plagiarism predicament presented itself last week, editorial cartoonists went to work. Here are some of the best examples [assuming, of course, that the images are original, not copied from other cartoonists, etc.] Please note that I’m not pretending that I drew these  myself, and that they include the artists’ signatures.

[cincopa AgNA7ULp70tH]

The post Rand Paul’s plagiarism predicament: Cartoonists and satirists add their own footnotes appeared first on Occasional Planet.

As I write this, Senator Rand Paul [R-KY] is still standing on the floor of the Senate, filibustering against the appointment of John Brennan as head of the CIA. Surprisingly, I agree with Sen. Paul on the need for more transparency regarding American policy on the use of drones. I’m in good company there, as even a progressive like Sen. Ron Wyden [D-OR] is calling for more openness about how our country views the use of drones.

But when Sen. Paul insists on holding up Brennan’s appointment until Attorney General Eric Holder promises that drone attacks will never be used against a U.S. citizen on American soil, he’s gone too far.

That’s a promise no president can make.

Putting drones aside for the moment, I’d like Sen. Paul to answer this question: Has the U.S. government—more specifically, agents of the U.S. government, such as FBI agents or U.S. Marshalls—ever used any type of lethal weapon against a U.S. citizen on American soil? Have state and local government agents used lethal weapons? Of course they have. And tough-on-crime Republicans have applauded law enforcement in many of these instances. I’m not fan of guns, and I do not welcome the recent hyper-militarization of American police forces, but even I can imagine circumstances in which the only course of action is to use lethal force—against a U.S. citizen on American soil.

It’s no more realistic to exact a pledge of no-drones against Americans than it is to prohibit law enforcement from doing its job when necessary. Would a Senator in the 1930s have demanded that Eliot Ness and his newly formed FBI not use machine guns against the gangsters [they were American citizens] of the Prohibition era, just because machine guns [as automatic weapons were known back then] were the most advanced weapons of the time?

A few days ago, Sen. Lindsey Graham [R-SC] tried to convince us that it doesn’t make sense to ban assault weapons—citing the supposedly reassuring fact the he owns an AR47 himself. That’s going to make us feel better? Graham said that, if America experienced a major cyber attack in which we had food shortages and no electricity, it might be a good idea for citizens like him to have assault weapons. For what? To protect ourselves against marauding hordes of fellow, desperate U.S. citizens on American soil? He didn’t go so far as to mention a zombie apocalypse, but it’s pretty interesting that he wants to protect his right—and that of other survivalist citizens—to get violent against one another, while prohibiting the U.S. government from stopping anarchistic or terrorist activity with the most advanced technology available.

Where were these guys when Bush and Cheney used weapons of mass deception against American citizens on U.S. soil? If there was a filibuster demanding a pledge not to use torture during the Iraq invasion/occupation, I’m not aware of it.

Sen. Paul’s point seems to be that perfectly innocent citizens, like himself, could be sitting in a café having a latte when, poof, out of nowhere they are vaporized by a drone attack launched by our own government. Hasn’t it always been illegal in the U.S. for government to attack innocent citizens—no matter what the weapon of choice of the day? But, silly me, I forgot that Sen. Paul is a Tea Partier and a conspiracy theorist whose main theory is that the U.S. government is conspiring to take over the United States.

Anyway, between the time I started writing this post and now, Sen. Paul’s filibuster publicity stunt droned on [pun intended, of course], flew way off course into delusional territory, and finally came to an end when the Senator declared that he needed to go potty.  Also, Eric Holder issued an answer to Sen. Paul’s main question: The President is not legally authorized to use a drone attack against a non-combatant American on U.S. soil.  The Senate confirmed John Brennan as head of the CIA.  Rand Paul has been excoriated by more rational members of his own party [including John McCain!]. And the talking filibuster appears to be back in fashion.

The post Ranting about Rand (Paul) ranting appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone where, when the other person is speaking, you (a) are not really listening, and/or (b) are focusing on what you are going to say next?  This is not just a habit into which we can fall as individuals; it happens as frequently, perhaps more so, when we’re involved in the kind of “group think” that characterizes political parties or philosophies.  Such may be true of the way in which some progressives have mocked and scorned Rand Paul.

When we demonize our opponent(s), it becomes easy to dismiss what they are saying; so easy that we often forget that the issue about which we are speaking is complex.  We tend to make “whipping boys or girls” of our opponents; mocking them with an intensity that if directed at us we would describe as cruel.

I have written previously about how progressives seem to have the intellect (not necessarily intellectual) high ground over many conservatives in our body politic.  Democrats simply don’t nominate individuals to high office who are so lacking in knowledge and analytical abilities as Dan Quayle, George W. Bush, or Sarah Palin.  However, there is a legitimate conservative philosophy in our body politic, and there have even been occasional Republicans who can articulate it.

¹ It’s easy to dismiss Gingrich because he has had so many faux pas, but he has also had extended moments of lucidity in which he can articulate a legitimate conservative point of view.

In what some progressives might think an unlikely source, a cogent argument has been made somewhat in defense of Rand Paul’s positions on the 1964 Civil Rights Act and a few other issues.  On the opinion page of CNN on-line, Tamar Jacoby has written a very thoughtful piece entitled “What’s behind Rand Paul’s confusion.”

Ms.  Jacoby writes:

… whether Rand Paul knows it or not, when he appeared unwilling to tell Maddow that he could fully support the Civil Rights Act, there was an important question lurking beneath the surface of his confused remarks. It’s not a new question — Americans have been grappling with it for 150 years.

But it and others like it are sure to be reopened in the months to come, as the debate begun by the Tea Party deepens and the nation revisits the issue of where government should begin and end.

Paul thrust us into one of thorniest corners of that larger question: What’s the government’s role in regulating how private actors — private individuals and the private sector — treat people of another race.

The framers of the 14th Amendment wouldn’t go there; in 1868, America wasn’t ready for it. That classic text, the foundation of all civil rights, deals only with how the state, not individuals or private businesses, should approach racial difference.

If we’re going to assess what Ms. Jacoby writes about Rand Paul, let’s make sure that we’re clear on the wording of the essential first clause of the 14^th Amendment.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State [bold added] shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Why is it that so many of the rights guaranteed in the 14^th amendment did not have the force of law until after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent ones in 1965 and 1968?  Because the framers of the 14^th Amendment, in their infinite wisdom, limited “equal protection of the laws” to actions by states, and only states.  This meant that actions by individuals, businesses, clubs; all forms of private organizations were exempt from the 14^th Amendment because they were not states.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 closed this gap.

An excellent interpretation of what Dr. Paul said as it relates to the 14^th Amendment is offered by Benjamin Todd Jealous, President of the NAACP, in the Huffington Post:

Mr. Paul says that he supports all efforts to fight government-sponsored discrimination. He has no quibble with the end of segregation in public schools, for example, or in public-sector hiring. His only dispute is with desegregation of the private sector — the local merchants and lunch-counter operators whose speech rights were apparently encroached on by an overzealous federal government. In Mr. Paul’s worldview, the free hand of the marketplace would have eventually forced most of those businesses to serve black folk anyway, because it was in their economic interest to do so.

There can be disagreements as to whether the Civil Rights Act expanded the rights of minorities, or whether it orchestrated an “exchange of rights.”  This exchange would involve African-Americans and other minorities gaining the right to full access to public accommodations such as restaurants or hotels at the expense of the owners of these establishments to choose who they want and don’t want as customers.  Congress, with the strength of an invigorated Civil Rights movement and some bullying by President Lyndon Johnson, passed the law which came down on the side of extending rights to minorities.

So if Dr. Paul is asserting that an argument can be made that establishment owners such as restaurateurs can operate their businesses as their castles, he is simply reflecting the law of our land for ninety-nine years after passage of the 14^th Amendment; one hundred seventy-seven years after the Constitution was ratified, and one hundred eighty-eight years after the Declaration of Independence was written.

If Dr. Paul is to be believed, he personally would never discriminate against an African-American and he also believes that no state can do so.  However, he seems to raise the question as to whether it is better to protect the rights of minorities than private shop-keepers.  As Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander said on “Face the Nation,” Dr. Paul just made it to the “big leagues” from Triple A politics.  He needs time to get his bearings straight.  That may be so, but for so many Americans who long ago made the decision that the lessons of history and the principles of fairness and justice protect the rights of minorities at all costs, Dr. Paul’s maturation is a little slow.  Unlike many of his Republican colleagues, he seems to want to engage in the world of complex ideas, and for that we give him credit.  However, most of America is well beyond his transitional thinking and is committed to protecting civil rights.  We’re okay with Dr. Paul raising questions about settled policy, but it’s too scary to have him in a position of being a contemporary policy-maker.  Thank you, Dr. Paul, for reminding us why there are certain liberties that require the unequivocal protection of law.

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